Astronaut shares rare shot of Uluru from the International Space Station

By Kristen Amiet| 2 years ago

Image: Getty Images

From the ground, Uluru is remarkable. But, as astronaut Thomas Pesquet recently discovered, it's even more impressive when viewed from above – from space, actually.

The French research engineer and NASA astronaut shared a snap of our most famous natural landmark on Facebook on February 5, saying he and his colleagues didn't always get the chance to see the monolith, so they revelled in the scene when they did.

The snap, taken from around 400km above the earth, had been liked just over 100,000 times and shared more than 15,500 times at the time of writing.

Uluru has been captured from space by satellites in the past, but this is the first time the feat has been achieved by a photographer. On Flickr, Pesquet noted that he used a simple Nikon D4 digital camera with no flash.

The 600-million-year-old monolith stands around 350m above ground, and extends as far as 5km beneath the earth's surface. It's 3.6km long, and 1.9km wide at its broadest point.

It's one of a handful of natural landmarks – like the Ganges river delta, the Grand Canyon, and the Great Barrier Reef – visible from space.